So my last Beetroot post was James’ recipe and I was a little miffed because it seemed to be quite considerably more popular than any post I’ve done over the last couple of months. So you’d better like this one. Or else.

Making goats curd is one of those things that is super simple to do, but seems quite fancy – so in other words something quite good to pull out when you want to impress some friends, but have very little time. As for Beetroot Carpaccio, all you need is a good knife, or even better a mandolin, and you’re there. Therefore it’s a very easy starter – it takes getting your arse in gear a day before, but only really takes minutes to make. Here’s the recipe which is plenty to serve eight.

About 24 hours before you want to eat, place a sieve over a bowl and line it with a piece of muslin. Mix the goats yoghurt with the salt and place in the centre of the muslin.

Bring the cloth up around the yoghurt and twist to tighten, fasten with a piece of string if you have one, just twist it tightly if you don’t. Place in the fridge and over the next 24 hours you’ll see the whey dripping out – you can give it a few squeezes of encouragement if you feel like it.

I stopped mine at 24 hours, but the longer you leave it the more dense it will become. When it’s ready, simply unwrap the muslin and use.

A couple of hours before you want to eat, slice the beetroot really finely and place in a large bowl with the oil, vinegar and salt and pepper. Toss it all together really well and leave to sit until ready to eat.

Heat a dry frying pan over a medium heat and add the coriander seeds until they become fragrant and begin to turn golden.

When ready to eat, arrange the beetroot on the some plates, put a dollop of goats curd in the centre of each. Scatter over the coriander seeds and sprinkle each piece of goats curd with a little paprika. Serve with some nice crusty bread. Yum.

After that, we had some delicious slow roasted lamb shoulder. It was about 2kg and underneath, I placed one chopped onion, two chopped carrots, some thyme, one squashed up head of garlic and then smothered it with oil, salt, sumac and za’atar, poured a little water around the edge of the pan and cooked it for 3 1/2 hours at 140c and it was amazingly tender.

i’ve read that after about 36 hours it becomes quite thick and dry, so perhaps a little crumbly? i think some people then roll it into balls and preserve them in olive oil, so they don’t go off for about a year… look up labneh / labneh ball recipes and you should find out some info from people who know more than me…

Hey Laura! Great seeing you at the weekend. I love your blog, and thrilled you’ve posted an easy recipe for what they called jocoque in Mexico, I used to live off it out there and have never found a decent one back here so I’m going to make it myself! Didn’t realise the recipe was that easy… Keep posting – it’s great cooking inspiration! Love Rosie x

thanks so much Rosie – encouragement is always much appreciated! I didn’t know it was a Mexican dish as well as Lebanese, brilliantly useful to know. really nice to see you at the weekend, we should have a London / Scotland gathering soon x